


I Loved You Like The Fall Of Rome

by pansexual_intellectual



Series: in me all that fire is repeated [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (his animagus form is nOT a bat), Animagus Buddies, Animagus Lily Evans, Animagus Regulus Black, Animagus Severus Snape, Aro/Ace Severus Snape, Blood Magic, DOING BAMF-Y THINGS, F/M, James Potter Needs To Learn The Meaning Of Consent, Lily Evans Potter & Severus Snape Friendship, Lily is a BAMF, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Regulus Black Gets Some Actual Friends, cause you don't live that long and not have a single romantic relationship if you ain't aro, like don't make me laugh she's really not into you, no means fucking no okay, yay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25295503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pansexual_intellectual/pseuds/pansexual_intellectual
Summary: Lily turns to him, smiling sweetly. She’s done this before, Lily reminds herself. Separated the boy from the blood-purists. It’ll be harder in this case, things are different, and it’s nothing like a revolution-yet.“Right, I know you’re constrained by family obligations to be prejudiced and bigoted against Muggleborns although you actually don’t believe it, and that you can’t let anyone know and since Sirius is rather an asshole you have obligations, but we have a secret Marauders-Hating Club that Iknowyou want to join. Meetings are every Sunday after breakfast, in the Come and Go Room.” Lily pauses for breath. Sev is currently wearing an expression that would lead one to believe he’s watching a horrifying train-wreck.Lily flicks her wand, undoing the Silencing Charm, and Regulus opens his mouth.“I don’t think-” Regulus tries, but Sev surprises both of them by sighing, loud and aggravated from his position against the wall.“Look, do you hate James Potter or not?” Sev says, looking annoyed.Regulus swallows, eyes both of them.  The silence stretches on and on and then slowly, he nods.
Relationships: Regulus Black/Lily Evans Potter
Series: in me all that fire is repeated [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1863724
Comments: 98
Kudos: 552
Collections: 5 Star HP Works, To remember and cherish, literally amazing i could read these over and over





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _“To you, monster:  
> _  
>  _I will love you back into the light whether you want it or not_
> 
> _My heart is a reservoir, and you can claw your way down  
> _  
>  _through the black and the cold,  
> _  
>  _thrashing and writhing and roiling-_
> 
> _but you will_  
>  _never  
>  _find the bottom.”__
> 
> __  
> 
> 
> -S.T. Gibson

She doesn’t know why, in the end. Maybe it’s something and maybe it’s nothing, maybe it’s the look in his eyes when the custard drips down the Slytherin table, Sirius-and-James and Peter laughing uproariously amongst the red-and-gold drapery, like he hates Sirius and can’t believe it, like he’s utterly lost. (She knows that look, sees it in the mirror everyday when she thinks about Pet, narrowed eyes and pinched thin lips and cruel, biting, words.) 

Lily looks at Severus, Severus who she sat down one day and said _I love you and I want you as a friend, but if you keep going along with the blood purity shit, we’re done_ , Severus who’s happier than she’s ever seen him, Severus who is proof, to her. Proof- of _something_ , something clear and bright and shining in the murky muddle of green-and-silver. 

_I wonder_ , Lily thinks, _maybe_ \- but she doesn’t get a chance to think on it further, as James fucking Potter is getting on his knees before her, faux-proposing for what feels like the fiftieth time, and she’s just _exhausted_. 

She’s been studying for her NEWTS nonstop, she’s yet to receive a single letter from Petunia, she’s been dodging hexes and hisses of _mudblood_ in the corridors and she is _sick_ of James Potter, of pureblood James Potter who’s never had to endure a single hardship in his life, with his loving, wealthy, family and his group of merry friends and his pranks and- well, now that she thinks about it, she’s just about the only thing that hasn’t gone right for him, and that thought makes her feel _good_ , in a vindictive sort of way, like she’s dealing justice, a Valkyrie of sorts, all gleaming mist and steely blades and dead man’s souls. 

Lily stands on firm legs, feeling something solid settle in her throat. 

“James Fleamont Potter,” Lily starts- she’s not even sure how she knows his middle name, besides the fact that everyone knows it on account of how utterly stupid it is - and her voice is cold and precise. She sounds a bit like Narcissa Black, she realizes suddenly, all pale hair and haughty, icy, cruelty, and then, with her next words, the rush of resemblance is gone and she’s back to being Lily Evans, fiery mudblood. 

“How many _fucking_ times do I have to say ‘no’ for it to get through your _thick_ head? Go fuck yourself.” Lily snaps. 

It’s then that she realizes that the Great Hall is utterly silent, and that Sirius Black is cracking up. (More than Sirius, if she’s honest- pretty much every Slytherin looks happy at seeing the ringleader of the Marauders publicly rejected, although it’s hardly the first time. Even Regulus Black, who she’d been looking at earlier- the thoughts slip their way back into the crannies of her brain, _what if but maybe_ \- is smiling faintly, a sleeve pulled over his knuckles and hiding the curve of his lips.) 

_Shit,_ Lily thinks- McGonagall is staring narrow-eyed at Lily, disapproving and sensible, but she thinks she sees a twinkle of amusement in there, somewhere. 

James takes it all in stride, although Lily sees the faint hitch in his breathing that tells her maybe he’s not as unaffected as he’d like everyone to believe, and gets up, grinning. “Someday, Evans,” James calls, and then he’s hounding back to the mothering embrace of the Marauders, amid many back-claps and _next time, mate_ ’s and suddenly, abruptly, she’s furious again. 

_Next time, mate_ , as if she’s going to give in eventually, as if today-tomorrow-forever she’s going to become _his_ ; _someday, Evans,_ as if she’ll eventually _give in_ if he tries hard enough, as if her thoughts and opinions and feelings don’t even _matter_ \- 

Lily inhales sharply, flags of color standing high in her cheekbones. She’s still standing, she realizes suddenly, people must be staring, and she feels bereft, like she’s been torn out of a dream and deposited unceremoniously in a world that is colder, harsher, than she had ever imagined. Ever could. Ever _will._ _Someday, Evans._

Lily bends down and grabs her schoolbag, slinging it over her shoulder smoothly as she’s able. She takes a crunch of toast and she’s off, stamping out of the Great Hall and feeling strangely like she’s a beat or two away from crying. 

What would Petunia think, Lily wonders, like it _matters_. (She wishes it didn’t.) 

She has Defense Against The Dark Arts in a half-hour and she hates- she wishes, she doesn’t know. 

The air is cold, brisk, her breath shivering and blooming in a noiseless cloud that she would have giggled at if she were a child. A glance at the window outside; snow furs the trees like a pact, a thick blanket. Icy, breathtakingly so. (Petunia had sent her Christmas present back, Lily remembers, eyes prickling further and she _hates_ it, doesn’t even celebrate Christmas anymore anyway, she celebrates Yule but-) 

There’s a rustling behind her, a murmur of noise and sound and as she turns, she sees the Slytherins are rushing out in one great outpouring tide, to get pudding out of their hair and clothes probably. Lily feels a rush of fierce, liquid, resentment towards the Marauders, because now she’ll get caught up in a tide of _mudblood_ and _shrew_ and _go back to where you came from, you filthy_ \- 

There’s a hand, at the narrow bones of her shoulder, yanking her back into an alcove, and Lily whirls around, wand slipping quicksilver into her hand, and meets the surprised eyes of Regulus Black. 

* * *

“Sorry,” he says, looking helpless. There are violet-coloured bruises under his eyes, like he hasn’t slept in a long, long, time, and Lily wants to press her the pads of her thumbs into them, she thinks they would fit perfectly. It’s a strange wanting, and she does her best to quell it. 

“Oh,” Lily says. “Well.” She thinks, _maybe._ She looks at Regulus Black’s gray eyes, which are distant and apologetic, like he’s bracing himself for a storm but there’s a larger, fiercer, darkness up ahead and it doesn’t really matter what happens to him now, like his fate is preordained and there’s nothing anyone can do to change it, like it’s impossible. 

Lily has always liked doing impossible things. Changing things no one would think to change, like being the first muggleborn to score the highest marks in the House, like being best friends with a Slytherin, like rejecting James Potter’s heart and hand over and over and over until she can’t believe he’s still trying, a rush of vindictive glee (Lily has Darkness in her, fierce bloodthirsty hounds that no one would believe but her). 

Lily tilts her head. Looks at him. Regulus Black, Sirius’s brother. She’s heard Sirius talking about him, calling him a prat and a slimy snake and evil. She’s heard Sirius calling Severus all of those things, too, and yesterday he made her a Pain-Relief Potion for her menstrual cramps and handed it to her, along with her favorite chocolates from the house elves. Regulus Black. His gray eyes hold none of the disgust and loathing she sees in the eyes of Mulciber and Avery and Nott. 

“Regulus Black,” Lily says out loud, tasting the name on her tongue. He has a middle name, too, something pureblooded and pretentious, likely the name of some sort of star and distant, forgotten, constellation. (She’ll never admit it but she likes those sort of names, likes the grandeur and sprawl of them, the syllables tasting decadent and crisp on her tongue, like thorny forests and heroes lost to the dusty pages of old.) 

“How would-” Lily starts to say, but then there’s a touch on her elbow and she turns to see Severus, looking curious and vaguely concerned, patchy robes and soft black eyes. (He’d effectively ruined his standing in Slytherin House after what he’d done, cutting ties with the blood purists, but she knows he’d do it again. Lily has always _meant_ something to Severus that she’s not sure she understands, that she’s not sure she’s _worthy_ of. He’d do it again and again, for her.) 

“Sev!” Lily says, brightly. She’s feeling awful and irritable, her menstrual cramps and _James Potter_ and the uncomfortable feeling of her period coalescing into one seething mass of ill-will, but Severus needs brightness in his life and she’s the only one in his life, really, so. 

Regulus murmurs something polite and begins to turn around, most likely to leave the alcove and pretend the whole situation- the whole tiny moment, pregnant with possibility and weighted on each side with complex issues that aren’t so complex, just prejudice and bigotry, really, plain and simple - never happened. 

Lily grabs his sleeve. 

“Sev, I was thinking. About our club.” Lily continues, keeping her tone cheerful. Her anger is for James Potter, and she’s learned long ago to compartmentalize, to divide her life into precise even sections, a long spinning dichotomy; all Muggleborns do, she thinks. A half-life, a double life. It isn’t nearly as exciting as it sounds. 

“Our. Club?” Sev echoes, confused. Lily beams even brighter, like a concrete force, like she’s expelling sunbeams out of her sclerae because _goddammit_ she is going to get Regulus Black and make something better out of him, she did it for Sev and maybe he doesn’t need saving but maybe she’s going to help him anyway. 

“Yes! Our top-secret Marauders-Hating Club.” 

“I thought that was. Um. Less of an official club and more of an unspoken agreement?” Severus says, shifting his feet and leaning more securely against the wall. Lily wants to roll her eyes. They’re making this so difficult, boys generally do. 

“Well, I have spoken it, so. It’s official now.” Lily grits out. 

Severus looks like he’s about to protest, but he catches sight of her face and sighs, shelving his no doubt numerous protests for later. “Yes, right. What about it?” 

“Oh, Sev, I’m so glad you asked,” Lily sings, adjusting and tightening her grip on Regulus Black’s sleeve. “Well, I was thinking we could invite Regulus here to join.” 

Regulus goes still. “I don’t-” He starts, likely about to spout some prejudiced shite she knows he doesn’t believe, and Lily whips a swift _Silencio_ in his direction. 

Lily turns to him, smiling sweetly. She’s done this before, Lily reminds herself. Separated the boy from the blood-purists. It’ll be harder in this case, things are different, and it’s nothing like a revolution- _yet_. 

“Right, I know you’re constrained by Slytherin and family obligations to be prejudiced and bigoted against Muggleborns although you actually don’t believe it, and that you can’t let anyone know because, well- _Slytherins_ , and family, and since Sirius is rather an asshole you have obligations, but we have a secretive- and it is secretive, no one has to know, really - Marauders-Hating Club that I _know_ you want- no, need - to join. It’ll be discreet. We can be discreet about it. Meetings are every Sunday after breakfast, in the Come and Go Room. No one will find us. We can use Disillusionment Charms if you’re that paranoid. Just.” Lily pauses for breath, an eye on Sev, who is currently wearing an expression that would lead one to believe he’s watching a horrifying train-wreck. 

“Just please come. I’m very persistent, as I’m sure’s been noticed. An annoyingly persistent mudblood shrew, I’ve been called,” Lily intones with great satisfaction. She enjoys repeating those words to people, enjoys the flinches, enjoys serving up the remnants and results of their subtle prejudices to them on a silver platter. _See, this is what you make, this is what you’ve done, don’t think you can avoid it._

Lily flicks her wand, undoing the Silencing Charm, and Regulus opens his mouth again. 

“I don’t think-” Regulus tries, but Sev surprises both of them by sighing, loud and aggravated from his position against the wall. 

“Look, do you hate James Potter or not?” Severus says, looking annoyed. 

Regulus swallows. Eyes both of them, appraisingly. The silence stretches on and on and then slowly, he nods. 

* * *

“Come to order, the first meeting of the Marauders-Hating Club in an official capacity,” Lily says. They’re in the Come and Go Room, where Regulus, surprisingly, has already been. 

Lily pauses and glances at Regulus. “Now, we state our names and our reasoning. For example.” 

Lily straightens her spine, setting her shoulders. 

“I, Lily Josephine Evans, hate the Marauders quite earnestly, with special recognition to one James Potter, whose only hobby besides being a general nuisance is to humiliate me in public locations despite what I’ve repeatedly informed him, which, unfortunately, happens to be the only word not installed in his vocabulary, the word ‘no’.” Lily states calmly and without inflection. The words roll off her tongue like licorice, dark and sickly sweet and smooth. 

Severus shifts. “I, Severus Tobias Snape, hate the Marauders with great passion, who are childish to the extreme and insist on bullying anyone who does not carry their House colors.” 

Lily nods approvingly and turns to Regulus, who’s looking faintly amused. People say he isn’t as handsome as Sirius, and Lily sees what they mean but she doesn’t agree, really- Sirius is handsome but Regulus is beautiful, all slender arches and thick lashes. Pureblooded, aristocratic. 

Regulus will be _fine_ , this will all be fine. 

“I, Regulus Arcturus Black-” _Arcturus,_ right, Lily recalls belatedly, “hate the Marauders with sincere devotion, with special recognition to one James Potter and Sirius Black.” He does not elaborate what for. (He doesn’t need to.) 

Lily knows that if somebody had become best friends with Petunia and turned Pet against her, if someone else had contributed to Petunia’s hatred of her, she would hate them, too. 

There’s a pause as both Severus and Lily recall what happens next, and then Sev says, “Oh, it’s my turn.” 

“Once a meeting, one of us will share an awful incident involving the Marauders,” Lily explains to Regulus in an undertone as Severus gets ready. 

“The Glitter Incident of ’73.” Severus says, theatrically (cutting ties with the blood-purists did wonder for his sense of dramatics), and the three of them exchange knowing looks and beleaguered sighs. 

After the retelling of the story, complete with many interjections of “arsehole” and “toerags”, Lily smiles mischievously, conjuring several vases printed with each of the Marauders faces, in turn. “Now,” Lily says sprightly, “Comes the fun part.” 

Lily picks up a vase of James Potter and hurls it at the nearest stone wall. It shatters into a thousand pieces, the broken fragments of James Potter rolling dazedly on the floor, and Lily feels exhilaration bloom in her veins, rolling duskily like storm clouds across a plain, the smell of rain thick and exciting. 

“Arrogant entitled fucker,” Lily snarls, and turns to Regulus, offering a vase. There’s a faint, faint, smile on his lips as he takes it and throws it with great force against the wall, not even bothering to shield himself as a shard of porcelain skids across his cheek, drawing blood. (We all, Lily thinks, bleed red, not muddy or pure or whatever else one might think we bleed red, all of us, human, a thick interweaving net of fragile crimson. Connections, interconnections, branches, networks. Blooming, blossoming, frailty and steel.) 

Yes, Lily thinks, this will all be fine. 

* * *

It takes time, as things do, but things _fit_ together soon enough, like jigsaw pieces sliding slowly and inexorably together, like icebergs breaking apart and becoming one with water, like dripping honey and slow, sweet, music.

Regulus is different from Sirius- he’s quiet, smart, and clever, with biting, bitter, wit and thoughtful consideration - but they’re so similar, too, with the haughty tilt of their chins, the flashing in their gray, Black, eyes when they’re angry, the way they _drip_ magic like others sweat; wandlessly Summoning quills and sheaves of parchment with nary a thought, sparking and popping and crackling in their Black veins; Lily doesn’t know if it has to do with blood or if it’s an effect of growing up in a magical house but it’s captivating to watch, sometimes. 

The Marauders-Hating Club branches out slowly, going from smashing James Potter-imprinted vases to discussing the exact right shield density to deflect Dungbombs (something the Marauders apply to their pranks liberally) to doing homework together, sprawled on the floor. Sometimes Regulus will look up, idly, and freeze, eyes going wide and utterly still, like he can’t believe he’s doing this, like he can’t believe he _has_ this. 

(“You see, Sev,” Lily says conversationally, “The main difference between me and James Potter- well, there are many, many, many, but _one_ of them - is that when I want someone, as a friend or otherwise, I _succeed._ ) 

The next Sunday, Sev is late and Lily is trying desperately not to cry angry tears, Petunia’s letter clutched in her tightening fist and the tip of her nose red and cold. 

When she slips into the Come and Go Room, Regulus is there, gray eyes sharp, sliding over to the letter and the redness in her eyes and Lily wants- needs - to make him _understand_. 

Silently, she hands him the letter, watches him read the one-sentence message. _Stop sending me your freakish letters._ “My sister,” Lily says, forcing the words out like gray glittering diamonds, harsh and sharp and looming, unbreakable in their utter, terrible, truth. _My sister._

Regulus glances up, understanding and sympathy written in the creases cornering his eyes, but when he speaks it’s _wrong._

“Muggles-” Regulus begins, but Lily cuts him off, a laugh ripping from her, tearing from her chest. It sounds like twigs snapping (branches breaking, family trees _splintering_ ). 

“My Muggle sister hates me because I have magic,” Lily spits. “Funnily enough, purebloods hate me for the same reason.” 

Regulus is silent for a while after that, folding up the parchment precisely and handing it back to her. Her hands brush his. 

Lily thinks he has never heard the facts presented to him so clearly, he has been born and bred on a diet of vague aphorisms and heady delusions of grandeur. _Toujours Pur_. 

Eventually, he says “I know,” softly, so softly, as if he’s afraid he will break something irreparable, “I know,” louder. “It’s just- people - my family.” Regulus breaks off, inhaling. “You know what I’m trying to say.” Regulus finished quietly, and Lily does. She _does_. 

“Well. If,” Lily says tentatively, “If you’re to be the Heir, then they need you.” 

Regulus snorts faintly although there’s nothing really to laugh about, and nods. His eyes are shadowed and gray in a _gray_ sense, gray like dusky skies and grief. He doesn’t understand what she’s trying to tell him. Lily clears her throat. 

“Regulus. They _need_ you.” Regulus looks up, startled at the intensity in her voice. “Yes, I know-” 

“You’re a _Slytherin_ , Regulus, _think._ They need you more than you need them. You don’t have to do a single fucking thing you don’t want to.” 

His eyes widen, lips parting. “I- my Mother-” 

“Poison her,” Lily says dismissively, and for a moment she’s shocked at her own callousness, but then she remembers a woman with harsh eyes and sharp teeth, hissing _mudblood filth, get out of my way_ when Lily’d bumped into her at 9 3/4, and she thinks _no, this is right._

Regulus looks skeptical though, so she expands. “Fine, how about this: you stay in the background, neutral. You shouldn’t spout a lot of the blood purity shite because that _hurts_ people like me and Sev, but you won’t intervene unless someone’s life is in danger. You get top marks, you do exceedingly well. Eventually, you’ll be Lord, and you can do whatever the fuck you want. Run The Ancient and Noble House of Black the right way. Command every single cousin of yours to marry a muggleborn, force Bellatrix to bathe in horse shite…” 

Regulus laughs, honest-to-god _laughs_ , and despite herself, Lily can feel a smirk tugging at the edges of her mouth. “You-” Regulus says. Stops. “You have a point,” Regulus says reluctantly. “It’s a good idea. How did you know about Heirships and Lordships?” 

Lily lets the smirk take over as she says, “Regulus. I _read._ ” 

* * *

Things are smoother after that. They don’t talk much about The Plan, as Lily’s privately termed it, but ever often Lily can see Regulus giving her considering looks, biting his nails and thinking. He flinches too often, Lily thinks. She may not have the most loving home but her parents have never hit her, never punished her as cruelly as she knows Orion and Walburga do. Regulus yearns for touch, aches for it. Touch-starved, they call that. (Lily touches him as often as she can; little grazes and slow sweeps and fond brushes.)

For his part, Sev has been helping her introduce the idea that _not all Muggles are bad_. They ask the Come and Go Room to provide records, and they introduce Regulus to Muggle music (which is, in Lily’s opinion, infinitely better). Regulus doesn’t take too well to the rock music, that’s more Sirius’s alley, but he falls in love with classical, with Bach and Gershwin and Tchaikovsky. 

(The next time they enter the Come and Go Room, there’s a piano there, with sheet music, and Regulus, who’s been learning Latin and French and piano and violin since he could toddle, falls upon it like a starving man, coaxing music so heart-wrenchingly beautiful that Lily’s eyes spring with tears. It becomes a routine for them, Lily and Sev whispering lazily as Regulus plays, often falling silent at the crescendos, getting utterly lost in the music. Lost, utterly lost. Lost boys, Reg and Sev, both of them, and she has found them. She isn’t a saviour, not by any means, but she likes to think she’s a good friend.) 

Regulus, for his part, introduces her to a new type of magic, rituals and blood and sacrifice and power. He starts out with the most general of rituals, a cleansing ritual, and for days after, Lily feels light and steely and bird-boned, magic rippling cleanly through her veins. It’s heady, this feeling, and she chases it, asking for _more more more_. 

Soon, Regulus is teaching them rituals kept secret by the vast majority of purebloods, carving runic pentagrams on the floor and scattering droplets of rich, gleaming, blood in sacrifice, like petals on snow. The feeling of _power_ , susurrating through her spine, bulging at her veins, straining at the thin skin of her wrists, fingers- it’s addictive, almost, and she doesn’t _care_ when Regulus tells her, looking sheepish, that it’s classified as Dark Magic. 

“I’ve never known a Mu- a Muggleborn to have an affinity for blood magic,” Regulus says thoughtfully. “That would be because no one teaches them.” Lily snaps, irritation prickling in her at the near-miss, at the slur he’d almost uttered. 

Regulus looks at her, gray eyes large and stormy in the clean cold light of the morning; Lily feels like she’s drowning, almost. He reaches out, a hand grazing her shoulder tentatively, a thumb sweeping across her bones soothingly, a quiet apology. 

* * *

“The Marauders,” Lily says, bursting into the room, “Are _unregistered Animagi_.” Lily had seen Sirius in the morn, all white, cold, light and sleepy hushed voices, seen the great shaggy dog elongating into the careless, artless, boy, color in his cheeks and an arrogant glint in his gray eyes. Angles, shifting shadows, but she’d known what she’d seen, the implications. 

There’s a stunned silence as they all process this. 

“You know what this _means_ , don’t you?” Lily announces gravely. 

Sev perks up. “We turn them in and get them sent to Azkaban for five years?” 

Regulus sighs. “Severus. Have _class._ Of course not.” Lily beams at him. Regulus, she sees, has caught onto her plan. That, or he doesn’t want to see Sirius in Azkaban. 

(She thinks it’s more of an ‘and’ than an ‘or’, she thinks that one-or-the-other-black-and-white isn’t really life, that things can be so unbearably complicated you want to cry, that your feelings can get so immutably knotted there is no possible way to dissect them, unravel them, pry them apart and study them and label them, they are their own nomenclature and isn’t that the truth.) 

He hides it, shoves it down into the tiniest dark corner of his heart until it’s bulging at the hinges, but he cares for his brother, Lily thinks, knows. _Knows,_ in the way Severus doesn’t, because she loves her sister and hates her in equal measure, loves her for the girls they once were and hates for the woman she is becoming. 

“We’re just as good- no, _better_ \- than them! We, too, will undergo the process to become Animagi, although we’ll register, of course, when we’re of age.” 

Regulus shifts, uncomfortably, and even in his fidgeting he’s elegant, controlled, somehow. “The process of becoming an Animagus,” Regulus begins reasonably, “Is quite arduous-” 

“Regulus.” Lily says, patiently. “If _Peter Pettigrew_ can become an Animagus-” 

“There’s no way-” Severus interjects, and Lily spares a glance for him. “Idiots. _Think._ Padfoot? Prongs? Wormtail? Sirius is a dog, James is some sort of animal with horns, Remus is- well, lycanthropy cancels out Animagus potential - and Peter is-” Lily breaks off, nose wrinkling as she processes the implications of the non sequitur _Wormtail_. 

Lily clears her throat. “Anyway, we’re probably the best suited for it- Sev and I are Potions geniuses, and Regulus, you’re amazing at Transfiguration.” Regulus’s cheeks flush prettily at the praise, and Lily can’t stop her smile. (She tucks it in her sleeve, thinking of that day with the custard and how Regulus had tucked his smile in his sleeve, too, and how she’d thought _maybe_ and now she thinks _yes._ ) 

“So.” Lily finishes. “Yes, or no?” 

Regulus is the first to speak, sprawling elegantly on the beanbag cushions (another excellent Muggle invention they’d introduced him to), all high angled cheekbones and half-lidded eyes. “Yes.” 

Sev sighs, but he doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t need to. Lily knows, as always- he will do anything for her. 

Lily smirks at them. “Excellent.” 

* * *

In the end, it’s simple. Lily and Severus tinker with the Animagus Potion, because to be quite honest, holding a mandrake leaf in their mouths for a month just isn’t feasible, even with Sticking Charms. She remembers, vaguely, the Marauders taking a faux vow of silence or some rot, but if they do it, people will suspect, people will connect the dots and from them will blossom the fraught, glittering, constellation of Regulus, Severus, and Lily, and they can’t afford that, Regulus can’t afford that.

Instead, they alter the potion until all they need to do is hold the mandrake leaf to their skin for a month. (Lily tucks the leaf in the soft cup of her bra and tries not to think of where Regulus may be slipping the leaf, tries not to think of the pale elegant arch of his neck, his long slim fingers.) 

Severus is sick on the final night, so Lily collects his leaf for him and brews the potion with Regulus’s assistance in the Room. It’s clear and brilliant, a faint glassy sheen rising from the surface, smelling of earth and roots and fur, and it’s _perfect._

(“Of course it’s perfect,” Severus says, sounding offended. “Next to me, you’re the best at Potions in this school.” “ _Next to you?_ ” Lily echoes, voice dangerously low, and Regulus makes a note of utter exasperation.) 

They wait for the next storm, thunder and rain and crackling whips of lightning whipping through the air (in Hogwarts, the storms are always more _alive_ ; the magic-laden air gives birth to great and terrible things, she’s one of them) and they run out, water sluicing down their robes. 

(Regulus applies several Impervius Charms to his and Sev’s cloaks but Lily declines, there’s something about the rain, something about water slicking her hair to her scalp and wet wet skin that makes her feel _alive_ , something about the cold that lights a fire in her, spreading from the pulsing fleshy beat of her heart to the thrum of her veins, prickling under her skin, exhilaration blooming like a night-flower.) 

Lily’s the first to take the Potion, she knows it has to be this way. Her perspective darkens, shadows edging her vision, and then blooms, shifting into something bright and strange, details she’d never thought to notice plucking at her heartstrings. 

This body is strange, light, sharp, everything is crowding her, the world is bursting with unbelievable richness. 

There is the smell of rainwater and earth, petrichor heavy in the air, there are mice scrambling in thick warm underground burrows, the heavy richness of the soil perfuming their fur. 

There is the lynx, silvery and watchful and elegant, licking its paws with regality, that smells of _pack-mate_ and _mine_ ; there is the crow, its wings a swift slice of shining blackness that smells of _friend_. 

(Lily is a gray wolf, thick-furred and green-eyed, and she knows it’s utterly predictable, hell, _she’d_ even predicted it as her Animagus form, but she likes it, loves it, even.) 

_Come_ , Lily tosses her head and noses the ground, feeling the animal strangeness washing over her and consuming her, becoming one with her. _Come_ , and they run into the Forest like mad things, like animals. 

* * *

She knows, now, why the Marauders are so _close_ , how they can nuzzle each other and _cuddle_ and not feel an ounce of the shame that other boys do- there’s something about warm fur and slick feathers that makes things easier, more natural. They sprawl out on beanbags (now, the Marauders-Hating Club meets every Sunday, Wednesday’s after curfew, and Saturday’s after dinner).

Being Animagi comes with strange effects, too- Lily can smell the Potions ingredients from seems like miles away now, picking out a single off Shrivelfig berry from the others; Sev’s eyesight has never been better, and Regulus is faster, stronger, his body lean and thrumming with instinctual animal movement. Both Lily and Regulus have excellent night vision and hearing and Sev has gotten much, much, better on a broom (he’s so comfortable in the air now, his eyesight and his keen bird-senses coalescing into the wonder that is Sev, Regulus, who has been trying to find a replacement Seeker given that he’s quite busy this year, has been pestering him to join the Quidditch team) and really, it’s all so _distracting_ it’s a wonder they can get anything done. 

( _My baby brother, the uptight Death Eater prig_ , Sirius guffaws in the dorms with just a touch of bitterness, of yearning, undershadowing his tone, and _Oh,_ Lily thinks when she remembers that Regulus is a year younger than her, _oh,_ because he seems so much older, shadowed eyes and set posture and elegant movements, wand flicking in the air and leaving magic behind, carving complicated runic configurations into the floor. A thread of tenderness slides between her ribs, knife-like; she inhales sharply.) 

Sev calls Regulus ‘Reg’, but Lily knows she never will, she likes his name too much. She tells him so, she tells him many things, one day when it’s snowing and everyone’s outside so no one notices the bottles of firewhisky. 

Regulus, of course, has been sipping elegantly at flutes of honey mead since he was small, and partakes sparingly at the bottle, only enough to be tipsy. 

Lily likes the taste of firewhisky on her tongue, likes the warmth of it as she tips her head back and swallows, throat working, the heat of it chasing the cold that whispers of _mudblood filth_ leave behind. 

She’s not a lightweight by any means, she can handle her alcohol, but there is, well, a _lot_ of it, and Severus and Lily start a covert drinking game involving how many times Regulus absently traces the elegant filigree of his House ring. 

Severus has fallen asleep, snoring softly near the warmth of the fireplace. Regulus is close, on the beanbag next to her, but it’s not _enough_ , she needs him closer. She reaches out a leg with all of the confidence of half a bottle of firewhisky and drags him closer, hooking an ankle around his waist. He lets out a startled sound but doesn’t resist, letting her drag him close, until his head is practically in her lap. It’s only because he’s tipsy, Lily thinks fuzzily; he’s so elegant and- and _composed_ normally, like a proper lady. The thought is funny; she giggles. 

“What?” Regulus asks, mouth twitching. He looks amused, his gray eyes glinting, and Lily feels warm all of a sudden, the firewhisky and Regulus coalescing in a tiny ball of dizzying heat inside of her and she _can’t_ , she has to- to let it out- 

“You’re- you’re one of my _best_ friends, you know,” Lily says suddenly, slurring her words only slightly. Regulus stills, but she hears the catch in his breathing with her wolf-ears. 

“Am I?” Regulus murmurs, quietly, and Lily nods, nods so hard she’s abruptly dizzy and slides down until her hair is brushing Regulus, until they’re side by side and she can talk to him properly. They should be _proper_ , Lily thinks, and tries to sit up taller but only succeeds in slumping further against him. 

“You and Sev,” Lily says confidently, “You and Sev are my _best_ \- my best-” Lily breaks off, brow wrinkling, as she tries to explicate what she means, what Regulus and Sev mean to her. 

Severus doesn’t- he doesn’t want sexual or romantic relationships, he’d told her once, it’s not because he can’t get a date or whatever nonsense the Marauders spout (once Lily had given him a bottle of specially brewed hair potion and his hair had lost its oily shine, he was actually reasonably good-looking, his heavy-lidded eyes and tanned skin conspiring to give him an exotic dusky sort of beauty) but because he’s actually not interested in either. He has friendship, instead, and she is his only friend and sometimes she thinks he’s her only real friend, and that _means_ something, they mean something to each other that is stronger and truer than ordinary best friendships and Regulus- 

Regulus. He may well be one of her best friends, but there’s something there, there’s something else in the tiny catch in his breathing when she moves to tuck her head in the crook of his neck, something in the look in his gray, gray, eyes, like she’ll swallow him up, like maybe he’d like that. Something in the way he flickers, constant in the periphery of her vision no matter where she is, her own Polaris, a gleam that others, Sirius and Walburga and Orion, have done their best to stifle, and, in Sirius’s case, to outshine with his own flaring glory but- 

But it’s _there_ , and she vows suddenly, fiercely, to see to it always, to tend that flickering gleam and feed it until it’s astonishingly bright, until it is so bright that no one, not Walburga or Orion or Bellatrix, can touch him. 

(She looked up the Regulus star in her spare time, ostensibly for Astronomy but really for her, astonishing herself by tearing out the page neatly and folding it, pressing it against her skin. _Regulus, designated Alpha Leonis, is the brightest object in the constellation Leo and one of the brightest stars in the night sky. Regulus appears singular, but is actually a star system composed of four stars_. Four stars, she thinks, four stars- her and Regulus and Severus and someone else. No one else, there’s just them three and maybe that’s all there has to be, ever.) 

She realizes, with a flush, that she’s been silent for quite some time, eyes tracing the tilt of his nose and his huge gray eyes, lined thickly with lashes that she thinks she’d quite like to feel flutter against her own and- 

“Regulus,” Lily whispers, her mouth suddenly dry. She takes another sip of firewhisky. Regulus hums in response, looking up at her and she can’t help herself, she sets the bottle down, slides onto his lap and threads her fingers through his hair (it’s inky against her skin and as soft as she had, in her most buried dreams, always thought it would be.) 

Regulus freezes, looking up at her with wide eyes and Lily laughs, softly. 

“We don’t have to, not if you don’t want to,” Lily whispers, settling more firmly on his lap, and he swallows. 

“And if I do?” Regulus says, voice rather hoarse. Lily answers him with her mouth on his, and _oh_ , it’s better than she thought it would be, his lips moving against hers gently, tongues slipping together and sliding so sweetly she _aches_ \- 

And suddenly the air changes, stiffening with fire and tension and they’re kissing frantically now, fire lighting in her veins and it’s _Regulus,_ Sirius Black’s little brother but he’s making her gasp against his lips and his long, slender, stupid pianist fingers slipping under her shirt and tracing the soft skin at her waist are making her want to die, combust, ignite. 

Lily sighs his name against his lips- it’s so stupid and sappy but she can’t help it, she’s kissed many many boys before but not like this, not with this exquisitely balanced mixture of fire and sweetness, none with Regulus Black’s gray, gray, eyes and long slim fingers and thick eyelashes. 

_Nothing,_ she tells herself firmly, _has to change. No one,_ she thinks, _has to know._

* * *

(Sev knows, of course. It’s- well, they’d both agreed that there was no point hiding it from Sev, because whenever they had time to be alone Severus was normally there, too. He thinks it funny, thinks it _hilarious_ ; when they tell him- or more accurately, when he sees and figures it out - he goes practically boneless on the floor with laughter, spluttering something about _James Potter_ and _Sirius Black_ and _take that, you Gryffindor dunderheads_.

And he goes on about this. At length. Gleefully. “Oi!” Lily says indignantly, when she’s had enough of his dreamy ramblings about how pissed James Potter’s going to be, “Our relationship is not about James Potter! In fact, our relationship has nothing to do with James Potter! We can separate ourselves from the taint of the Marauders!” 

She looks to Regulus, who’s lazily practicing his nonverbal transfigurations (a year ahead, and _wandlessly_ \- James Potter is supposed to be the Transfig prodigy but Lily knows that if Regulus weren’t a Slytherin McGonagall would be singing his praises and venerating him as the next coming of Merlin- although Merlin, Lily reflects, was also a Slytherin), for help. 

He looks up, shiftily. “Well?” Lily demands. 

Regulus sets his wand down, fixing his gray eyes on hers. “We bonded over a mutual hatred of James Potter,” He says patiently. “Our ‘club’ is literally based off disliking them. We once spent an enjoyable afternoon discussing ways to sell James Potter into slavery and classify his hair as a separate entity. The day we met was the day James Potter proposed to you for the thirty-fourth time. Do you really think that our relationship has nothing to do with James Potter?” 

“You cannot be serious.” Lily mutters to the room at large, waving her hands empathically. Regulus smirks, an expression rather uncharacteristic to him, and she sees what’s coming- 

“No, I’m Regulus. That’s my brother you’re thinking of.” 

Lily lets out a horrified groan and buries her face in her hands. “Remind me why I put up with you?” 

“You _liiiiike_ him.” Sev pipes up, and God in Heaven if that isn’t the fucking truth. 

* * *

Regulus is- well.

He isn’t like Sirius, which Lily is quite thankful for. Dry biting wit, a certain composure accumbent in the Black bones of him, the way he eats chocolate croissants (chocolate sliding dark and slick over his long, slim, fingers, _God_ ), the way he plays the piano with utter focus, wringing-coaxing-rending the most exquisite sounds from the supple keys, the way he hides so much of himself, locked and shuttered away in the gorgeous blank shell of him. 

(In the halls, when they pass, their eyes meet- a second, a moment, a flash, green-to-gray-to-green, and Lily feels shaky and shivery for hours afterwards, something hot and loose swaying through her, dizzying her in its intensity. 

Sometimes, when she sees him, stiff-spined and blank, gray eyes cloudy, her stomach twists in grief because he’s had to hide _so much_ of himself, hide his warmth and humor and humanity. She aches for him, sometimes- he has it easier than her in the halls, no one shouts or spits at him for his _blood_ , no, not him, the purest of the pure, Black through and through, but she has never made any attempt to conceal herself. She has never _had_ to. She is brash, spitting, steely, unparalleled in Charms and excellent in Potions. Lily knows who she is, Lily has always known, but she also knows that if you hide yourself for long enough, it’s easy to forget.) 

But. When she meets his eyes she sees the Regulus she knows now, spine curved over the noir surface of the piano, fingers gliding across the keys ( _glissando, legato_ ), bowing with the shattering force of the music, light streaming from the craven surface of the skylight, illuminating his face as with the breath of God. 

(Lily has always liked beautiful things. She sketches him when he plays, sometimes, charcoal sliding across manila, breath-catching-lines-skidding at the swelling furls of music. The sketches are thickly drawn things, charcoal digging in deep and hooking sharp claws in, soul-deep, all harsh lines and violence. She comes to know herself in him, comes to understand the exquisite media of her own most visceral self.) 

* * *

Her lips sliding over his, his tongue flicking the roof of her mouth; they come to know each other with terrifying intimacy, mapping every inch of the other’s body in desperate cartography.

Lily knows it isn’t true, knows she has existed in bright fire and glory before he laid his slender divagating hands on her, but when he touches her, she feels _real_ , she feels the ice and the blankness melting away, feels the length of her limbs and the cleft of her navel and the weight of her breasts in a way she hasn’t ever before. _He touches me, therefore I am._

(He knows what makes her gasp, now. His fingers sliding up the knobs of her ribs, the sweet aching slide of him between her thighs, his mouth pressing cherished words against her throat, the divot of her collarbone, their own secret vernacular. What makes her _scream,_ -) 

(Empty deserted classrooms, an imprint of their bodies in the thick disturbed dust, Locking and Silencing Charms blanketing the area as thickly as the scent of their lust-) 

* * *

_I’m going to marry you,_ Regulus whispers into the soft flat plane of her belly, the arch of her foot, the web between her fingers, the soft ginger thatch of fur between her thighs, the cicatrix of scarring on her hip a particularly nasty curse Avery’d flung at her once.

She doesn’t hear him at first, when his whispers are confined to the lower regions of her body, but now it’s _all_ she hears. 

_I’m going to marry you_ , when they pass in the halls and all they get is a look, a glance, a moment, gray-green eyes. 

_I’m going to marry you_ when she’s laughing at Sev’s reenactment of James Potter falling off his broom trying to impress her and Regulus is just watching her laugh, steely gray eyes gone impossibly, helplessly, soft. 

_I’m going to marry you_ when she’s at the Slytherin-Gryffindor game with red and gold hair ribbons (but there’s green in her eyes and silver in her earrings, the simple chain strung round her neck) and Regulus is diving for the Snitch and she can’t breathe for fear of him falling. 

_I’m going to marry you_ strung in her bones, reverberating whenever she sees Regulus, thrumming with exquisite power, making her tremble and she’s never been one to dream of weddings but she dreams now of kissing Regulus Black in front of a crowd of well-wishers, where anyone could see them, where it doesn’t _matter_. (She researches wizarding wedding traditions in her free time, stuffing the overly girly book in her schoolbag and glamouring it to look like a copy of _1000 Ways To Curse Your Suitors_.) 

When he asks, it’s private and simple, alone in the Room with a Black family ring and a sonata he’s composed for her on the piano, one so beautiful she’s crying and gives him a murderous glare when he sees. (The ring is silver and slim, with an emerald set tastefully in the center. _Slytherin colors_ Severus guffaws when he sees it, and Lily’s happy but not so happy she can’t pretend to be mad, which she does. She wears the ring on a long chain round her neck, tucked inside her robes where no one can see.) 

He’s been self-studying to take his NEWTS along with the two of them and skip his seventh year, and this, along with a ridiculously detailed binder full of notes and steps and margins, constitutes of his updated version of The Plan, which Severus and Lily immediately examine and edit. 

_The Plan_ is the new _I’m going to marry you,_ it shivers in the slick vessels of her veins, the sharp flicks of her hip-bones, the singing strands of her hair. 

(In it is how they’re going to force Walburga Black to accept a Muggleborn as the bride to their Heir, how they’re going to take down a Dark Lord.) 

(It should be impossible, but. _Lily has always liked doing impossible things._ ) 

* * *

In the end, it is James Potter and Sirius Black who first discover them. They’ve kept things secret for almost four months now, and they’ve grown complacent, over-confident in their Locking Charms and Silencing Charms and once-upon-a-time they used Disillusionment Charms but Lily likes to see Regulus, the lovely bones and skin of him, and he likes to watch her face as she comes.

They are in an empty classroom, Lily pressed against the far wall, her legs wrapped around Regulus’s waist and she loves seeing the composed pureblood Heir so disheveled, hair mussed and lips red; they’re mostly clothed so far but he has three buttons undone and the lace of her bra is peeking out- 

They hear the door clicking, catching, and James Potter’s voice saying _Now what do we have here, Padfoot?_ and Sirius Black chuckling lowly and unraveling their spells and _shit_ \- Lily can’t do a Disillusionment Charm nonverbally and they’ll hear her - 

“Got it, Prongsie!” Sirius Black’s voice comes, cheerful and foreboding and Lily inhales sharply, horror flooding her and what can they _do_ , they can’t let the Marauders know that they, too, are unregistered Animagi, _shit shit shit shit buggering fuck_ Lily thinks, and Regulus pressed up against her is looking just as panicked- 

Lily meets his eyes. There’s a spark of an idea blooming, she mouths _trust me_ and he nods, slowly- 

The door swings open, and both Regulus and Lily look over. James Potter and Sirius Black are standing there, and both of their eyes fix on them and there’s this look of slow dawning horror and she can tell that neither of them have recognized her yet, she’s mostly hidden behind Regulus but goddamn if she isn’t a Gryffindor. 

“ _Reg?_ ” Sirius says, voice high and disbelieving, like he can’t believe his beautiful brother could possibly find someone to kiss, _don’t make me laugh_ , and Lily slides her legs from his waist and detangles herself from him. 

(James Potter’s eyes are bugging out, his face going a peculiar grayish color.) 

“Hello, boys.” Lily smiles, hands behind her back ( _Diffindo_ , she thinks, and the pad of her index finger splits and there’s blood beading and she backs up slightly, leans against the wall. Her shirt is undone and James Potter’s eyes are fixing on the curve of her breasts and the yellow lace. 

“My eyes are up here, Potter,” Lily snaps, tracing a rune against the wall, biting her lip. This has to work. 

“I- Lily - the Imperius Curse, you think? Amortentia?” James Potter stammers, hands opening and closing like he doesn’t know quite what to do with them. 

Fury freezes the blood in her veins to ice, sharp and unyielding. James Potter has never respected her decisions, has always come after her no matter how many times she says _no_ , so it shouldn’t really be a surprise that he would disregard it when she said _yes_ to someone else, but still. 

“That’s quite a weighty accusation.” Regulus says cooly, gray eyes flicking briefly at Sirius, behind Potter. 

James scoffs. “Oh please, we all know Evans isn’t interested in dating anyone.” 

“Or maybe,” Lily says deliberately, “I was perfectly amenable to going out with someone, just so long as that person wasn’t _you_.” 

(It hurts. She knows it will hurt, she relishes in it, thinks _you never gave a fuck about what I chose, why should you start now? Don’t look at me like that, don’t give me those eyes, don’t fucking cry._ ) 

“ _Secretum meum non dicam tibi: in sanguine tuo ferveat, et, ne te vivum comburere._ ” Lily says suddenly, sharply, and there’s a wave of fluttering magic, a drip of her blood rolling on the floor, and Sirius Black’s face goes utterly white. He’s from a Dark family, he knows what will happen if they tell. 

“What-” James Potter gasps out, and Lily’s smile is a vicious slash of red. “Tell anyone what you saw in this room and your blood will boil in your veins, and thus consequently burn you alive. One would assume.” Lily pauses. “Unless you get to a Healer in approximately 6.5 seconds. But I don’t think you should take the risk.” 

“She’s- he’s done something to her, Pads, why- what-” 

Lily snarls, the wolf in her rising, fur-glinting-teeth-sharp. 

“And just _what_ are you insinuating, _James_? That I’m incapable of protecting myself from lovestruck boys who don’t know to take ‘no’ for an answer? Because I _assure you_ , James, I’ve had _plenty_ of experience.” Her words are coated in venom, sweet and sharp and gouging. (She hopes they poison him, she hopes he falls to the ground writhing. Severus hung upside down, his clothes stripped off, Lily stalked and humiliated and pursued over and over and over, made a target by particularly vicious boys who don’t take kindly to the idea of a pureblood Potter marrying a Muggleborn- _ha_ \- Regulus hexed simply for wearing green-and-silver, simply for being a Black that Sirius doesn’t approve of- he deserves it, he fucking deserves it all.) 

She then realizes that because she’s warded the room with a Secrecy Ward, neither of them will be able to speak of anything that occurs, so she bares her teeth at him and _shifts_ , long loose hair melting into stark sleek fur, green eyes darkening, teeth sharpening. 

James makes a faint gasping noise, like a drowned fish. 

Lily stalks over to him, and Regulus laughs, shifting as well into his lynx, and she hears Sirius mutter _why the hell not?_ and shifting into a black, black, dog. 

The three animals, two against one, snarl at each other, although most of Lily’s venom is directed to the sole human in the room, and then Potter shifts into a massive deer with delicate spiraling antlers and wide owlish eyes and fuck, she likes these odds, two predators against one domesticated predator and a herbivore. 

The air is tense, taut, and then Potter emits a harsh sound, likely the harshest sound his stag-snout can produce, and Lily laughs and leaps on him, not aiming to kill (although she could although the wolf in her feels like she’s _meant_ for it) but to subdue, teeth drawing blood and pained whimpers from Potter’s soft red-spotted pelt. 

A glance to her right- Sirius and Regulus are tussling, Sirius growling and snarling and tossing his head, Regulus more judicious, pacing and pouncing and feline to the last. It’s a confusing, black-and-silver mess, teeth and fur and plumed, tangled, tails, but there’s the smell of blood in the air, there’s the fierce unbowing set to Regulus’s shoulders, and she knows who has the upper hand. 

(Lily gets the feeling they’re releasing something that’s been pent up in them for a long time, that after they finish, they’ll be bloodied and battered but _brothers_ again. She thinks. Knows.) 

Lily sinks her teeth into the meat of Potter’s shoulders once or twice but it’s rather boring, given that A) he’s a herbivore and B) he doesn’t want to hurt her. She eases off of him, pacing by Regulus ( _mate_ , the wolf in her growls, _protect_ the human in her agrees). 

God, she thinks, what are they _doing_ , what are they fucking _doing_ , have they lost their minds completely, have they gone completely mad they must have, brawling wildly in an empty classroom, anyone could just- 

stumble in, the door creaking open and Lily’s heart seizes but it’s- oh, it’s Remus, which is bad but not as bad as it could be, and as he enters the room, eyes wide with utter shock, the secrecy wards ripple over him, which is a relief. 

Lily shifts again, elongating into her human form. Her robes are rather torn, but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a few charms, and her face is rather smeared with blood, her hair a wild thorny mess, but she doesn’t _care._

“Lily- and that’s _Regulus_ \- and the blood on your face - _Prongs_? What- why-” Remus stammers, his werewolf nose sensing everything. 

Lily lets out a low, rough, laugh.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“I am not cruel, just truthful —_
> 
> _The eye of a little god, four cornered."_
> 
> - _Mirror_ by Sylvia Plath

Lily Evans does not hate Remus Lupin. Oh, sure, she dislikes him, but she doesn’t hate him- that honor is reserved for James Potter and Voldemort - and besides, who could hate Remus? Librarian charm, soft tawny curls and amber eyes and silvery scars, biting his lip and _not doing a damn thing_ with his glinting silver Prefect badge, just _watching_ as Sirius Black and James Potter string Slytherins _up_ , just _watching_ , what the _fuck_ is that Prefect badge fucking _for_ -

(Okay, Lily could hate Remus.) 

(She just doesn’t.) 

(She doesn’t hate Sirius Black either, although she thinks she maybe used to, until Regulus told her in a quiet, quiet, voice of the Sirius Black who stood before his mother’s wand for his baby brother, who took the brunt of the punishments and pain and emerged with merry, mad, eyes and a careless broken soul.) 

“Well, Remus, what you see here is the culmination of years and years of public humiliation, shame Sev isn’t here really, he’ll be absolutely devastated he missed it. Regulus and Sirius… er, they’ll work things out. Brotherly-like.” 

Because _boys._ Honestly. 

Remus swallows, the curve of his Adam’s apple hitching, and he says “Yes, but- _Regulus_? How did all- you four - how-” 

“Regulus and I have been fucking for about three months now,” Lily says cheerily because why the fuck _not_ , because she’s learned from Petunia how to throw secrets like a circus performer might throw knives, sharp and cruel and careless. 

There’s a sharp sound and then Regulus is drawing up next to her, flashes of the lynx lingering in the half-wild Blackness in his gray eyes, in the fading sharpness of his ~~claws~~ fingernails, in the toss of his hair and the arch of his neck. 

“Fucking, love? I’d thought we were more than that,” Regulus says, amused and rather breathless, from the sound of it. He slides his arms around her waist, pressing his body to hers and they’re both bloody (what the _fuck_ have they been doing? half-mad, the four of them) and this is the first time they’ve done this with someone besides Sev in the room and it’s exhilarating, bubbles in champagne in blood. 

Lily twists in his arms and can’t help the smile tugging at the edge of her mouth when she sees him. He’s got blood (Sirius Black’s blood, something vicious and only half-sated whispers smugly from inside the curvature of her ribs, twining and steely) smeared on his face, his robes are ripped and there are the bite-marks of a canine’s jaws all over his body but there’s a satisfied glint in his gray eyes that’s so _Regulus_ she can’t help but grin. 

“ _Episkey, Reparo, Episkey, Scourgify, Episkey_ -” Lily cants slowly, healing and cleaning and fixing and Regulus tips her a sparkling smile and half a beat later, he’s running the warm fingers of his magic over her body, healing the slight bruises (James Potter has no sharp teeth or claws, it’s rather a shame) and straightening (and buttoning) her shirt. Lily shudders at the tingling, _full_ feeling his magic always sends through her, like a shock of caffeine to the system. Wandless and nonverbal- yeah, it’s definitely Regulus. 

“What. The _fuck_?” Remus says weakly, gesturing frantically with his hands, and Lily glances over from Regulus absently to see that James Potter has shifted back, his shoulders and sides weeping blood, and both he and Remus are staring at her and Regulus, agog. 

There’s a subtle ripple and then Sirius Black is human again, hair utterly wrecked and teeth sheathed in blood, looking mad and gleeful and wild. 

“Nice one, Reggie! Didn’t know you had it in you!” Sirius laughs (in his eyes, the Black madness lurks, dormant and disguised and dangerous still, all merriment and glasses of golden champagne and debauched revelry) and he’s pressing a messy kiss to the curve of Regulus’s cheekbone (Regulus goes utterly still, cheeks flushing at the contact, eyes wide and gray and so unbearably, terribly, hopeful that Lily has to press her face in the curve of his neck) and loping over to the other side of the room. 

“Gents.” Sirius tips the bill of a nonexistent hat, eyes flashing brightly. 

“Can someone explain what the hell is going on?” Remus half-yells and Lily feels a small burst of offense because _hey_ , she explained everything, didn’t she? 

“Not my fault if he didn’t like _my_ explanation.” Lily mutters to Regulus, and he laughs into her hair. 

“An explanation, you say?” Sirius starts, and Lily comes to a startling realization- Sirius is _just like_ Sev with a hefty dose of madness, they have the same flair for dramatics. She’s feeling sated and boneless and benevolent, so she turns and settles against the slender solidity of Regulus, ready for a show. 

“Well, my good man Moony, comrade James and the ever-excellent, stunningly handsome, dashing, and debonair, Sirius Black were strolling down the corridor, just taking in the sights and doing a bit o’ casual breaking-and-entering when we came across a mysteriously Silenced classroom. Now, there’s nothing we can appreciate more than a good ol’ Silencing Charm, but the poor buggers might’ve needed a wee bit of help, maybe a helping hand in the proceedings-” 

At this, Lily snorts so hard she almost sneezes- 

“And so, with an eye to the commoner, the average working man, we broke down the door and what did we find but my baby brother and the lovely and potentially Imperiused Ms. Lily Evans-” 

“I’m not fucking Imperiused, you fucker-” Lily snaps, swear words tumbling from her mouth like instinct. 

The tale Sirius tells is dramatic and inaccurate while somehow managing to simultaneously be pretty accurate, and through it all, James Potter looks like a ghost, his face pale and slack like he’s forgotten how to make expressions. Lily feels a surge of satisfaction and anger in equal measure, _don’t fucking cry don’t **fucking** cry_ running through her head, she wants to scream at him, shock him, make him _do_ something, _something_ , anything, because what right does he have to look so devastated. 

She has never belonged to him and why can’t he see that, why does he have to - 

“So,” James Potter says, voice hard and spine stiff, hazel eyes dark in a way she’s never seen before, “You whoring yourself out, then?” 

And Lily- 

When Lily gets angry she feels hot all over, gritty dark anger pumping through her veins like flames licking at the slick underbelly of a cauldron. When Lily is _furious_ , however- well. That’s a bit different. 

(When Lily gets _furious_ , she feels cold, her fury and intention hardening, freezing and sharpening into something cruel and wicked and terrible, icing the hot seething blood in her veins and twining poisonous fingers around the nest of her heart, sinking in and giving it fangs. I could kill someone, she’ll think with startling clarity, I could _murder_ someone and not feel an ounce of guilt and it’s true, more than once she’s had to breathe deeply and sharply, taking the ice and shoveling it somewhere cold for later, because revenge is a dish best served cold and Lily always does. 

_Mudblood scum_ Lucius Malfoy whispers for the fiftieth time from behind the soft languid hands of an aristocrat and Lily smiles at him, green eyes glinting the color of _avada kedavra_ and lost souls. Later, he wakes up at night to find all of his hair semi-permanently removed and his clothes soaked in a mixture of mud, blood, and pond scum- to be perfectly accurate, of course. 

It doesn’t matter how she does it, she always _does_ , when the Fury is running through her, thrilling her veins and prickling along their icy walls, she gets it done. The look in her eyes could murder men, the clench of her cold, aching, fist could reap souls. Occasionally practicality will intrude and she’ll spend the day locked up in her dorm room, shivering and shivering and gritting her teeth around the incessant _rage_ but more often she’ll stalk the halls like a wraith, furious hair whipping around her the color of the eyes of the devil. 

There is a monster in her, Lily knows, or maybe it _is_ her, not the slavering teeth-gnash-snarl of Remus’s wolf or the graceful sharp-teethed predator of hers, but something cool and collected and inherently Lily, laced with plenty of malice aforethought and cruel knives glinting under the light of a waning moon. 

Controlling it is awful, because it’s already controlled. It’s already cool and sharp and cold and it’s _so hard_.) 

And Lily… Lily is- Lily is _furious_. 

Black has stopped his retelling, gray eyes narrowed and sharp and reproachful (even he, for all his arrogance and cruelty, has never called a girl a whore), Remus has faltered, looking horrified (saying nothing, as usual), and Regulus has stepped forward, his hand in hers clenched tight, his face blank with Black wrath. 

“Coming from the boy who’s been asking me out since he grew pubic hair,” Lily says sweetly, coldly, stepping forward, wand slashing through the air performatively, “The sentiment is rather false, don’t you think?” 

He scoffs and she steps closer. 

James Potter swallows, looking up at her with hard, glinting, hazel eyes, and Lily snarls at him. “Well? You had so much to _say_.” 

He falters. “I-” Lily’s had enough; she strikes with a swift kick to his groin and he crumples to the ground. The wolf in her is snarling in satisfaction, but the Fury is not yet sated, it needs _more_. She will plot her revenge later, now is for the wolf. 

Lily bends down, lips grazing his ear. “Don’t _ever_ call me a whore again, James Potter. _Nedicamanalium._ ” She hisses, driving her and down in a counterclockwise motion, jabbing the soft skin of his neck. The curse swirls through her arm into his cracked, slightly parted lips; Lily smiles in satisfaction. She did warn him, but she cannot help but hope that he will use the word ‘whore’ again, and she’ll get to see the effects of her curse. 

Finished, Lily steps away from him, into the warm upright cradle of Regulus’s arms. “A lovely curse, that,” Regulus murmurs in her ear, and Lily snorts, unladylike and pleased. 

Looking up, she sees Sirius and Remus just standing there, awkward, and Lily feels quite sorry for Sev, because not only did he miss the humiliation of James Potter, but he also missed Sirius Black being struck dumb, for once. She’ll have to gift him the memory later. 

* * *

The Plan unfolds in dizzying synchrony with the their scrawled notes. Walburga and Orion Black are, predictably, horrified and disgusted at their son’s choice of wife, but Regulus tilts his head and challenges them to settle this with the Black Family Magic. If the family magic accepts Lily, he says, she will be his wife.

The family hastens to the ritual room, and Lily takes charge, bringing her clean silver tools out from under her robes and drawing the ritual circle with a mixture of her blood and Regulus’s. The Blacks take hands and chant, low and sonorous and echoing, plucking something in her heartstrings and setting her alight and she feels it- 

It is cold and furious, icy and bristling and ruthless. It is as familiar as her bones, she feels it at night, howling and restless. Lily cannot help the slightly crazed laugh bubbling in her throat because she is more Black than any of them despite not being a Black at all. 

These Blacks have never had to endure spitting and insults and slurs and hate crimes, have never had to grit their teeth and work twice as hard because of their blood, they have never felt wrath so cold it burns in their veins and tendons and heartstrings at night, have never felt _I will prove them all wrong, I will make them fear me_ echoing through their skulls. 

She has. It has made her ruthless and utterly capable, it has sharpened her knife-like into something that is so cold it burns, that draws blood with the slightest graze. 

The Black Family Magic hovers around her, testing, acknowledging the Fury inside her and humming, pleased. She feels it graze her forehead; a benediction, and then plunge _into_ her and it’s- 

She _feels_ it everywhere, every cell every _atom_ of her body shaking to life, tearing filaments of sluggishness asunder, lighting every nerve ending in her body into quivering fire. She is fire, she is snow, she _is_ the Fury, it has become one with her and there is no difference to any of it, she is and always has been the Fury, she will burn cities to the ground with the graze of her fever-chill palm, she will flay skin to shreds with a flicker of her eyelashes- 

Slowly, Lily turns. Vaguely, she knows she must look, well- insane, the green in her eyes utterly glowing with suppressed power, the flame of her hair billowing and burning, her pale skin fever-bright and shining. They are Blacks, they will sense the power that ripples off her skin in petal-like waves, heavy and smelling of ice and storms. 

Lily tilts her head and smiles, the white and sharp of her teeth glinting in the low light. 

“Well?” 

* * *

They are wed at Beltane, by the roar of a bonfire. It’s awkward, to be sure- she can’t invite any of her family, given that they’re Muggles. She invites her relatively pureblooded friends instead, Alice Longbottom and Marlene McKinnon and of course, Sev, although they have to introduce him with his mother’s maiden name instead.

Sirius is there, gray eyes wide with prolonged disbelief and something she can’t name. 

Their hands are knotted together with red silk; they leap over the besom broom. It’s a blur augmented with flickering firelight, Lily remembers laughter and scent and the vague reassuring warmth of Regulus behind her, his hands on her skin. 

Afterwards, the hand-fasting ceremony over and done with, there’s an extravagant reception (although, Sirius tells her, both of them snickering discreetly over firewhiskey, not as extravagant as most Black weddings, their Heir wedding a Muggleborn is so shameful that the family spent only a few thousand Galleons, not tens of thousands). Lily smiles coldly and calmly over flutes of elf wine, meeting the silvery Black eyes with her own poison-green. (She’d needed several discreet Sobering Charms, but no one was the wiser.) 

The elegant society dancing and casual sipping lasts until midnight, and then the party is dispelled with subtle cracks of Disapparation. Lily’s a taut tense bowstring of anticipation and need and then finally, they are in the bedroom and Regulus has his hands on her skin, cupping her breasts, between her thighs. It feels different, somehow, the magic of the hand-fasting ceremony rippling over her skin and making her nerves twice as sensitive as usual, and when she comes, she swears the earth itself shakes in its foundations. 

(They have a Muggle wedding, too, for her parent’s benefit more than anything else. Her father eyes Regulus suspiciously and her mother fawns over his impeccable manners and Petunia keeps her venom to herself, for once, and there’s a white dress and her long-suffering friends and Severus and Sirius subtly shooting stinging hexes at each other throughout the ceremony, and even though it’s not magic, even though it’s only an aisle and rose petals and her father’s hand on her elbow, she swears she feels a subtle reverberation of bonding magic all the same.) 

In another world, Lily Evans-Potter joined the Order of The Phoenix as soon as she graduated, ascending the rank easily with the bright flag of her hair and the quick vicious sweep of her wand. 

In this one, Lily Evans-Black works with her husband to subtly topple Voldemort’s empire, sending feelers out through the pureblood ranks and weeding out support from the old families, all the while working towards her Potions and Charms Masteries. Regulus hears whispers of Horcruxes from an old friend, Barty Junior, and when Bellatrix uses the Black elf, Kreacher, to do Voldemort’s bidding, they ask Kreacher to take them to the cave. 

In another world, Regulus Black died, terrified and alone, succumbing the cold clutch of dozens of Inferi, after reliving his worst memories. 

In this one, they feed the potion to an Imperiused and Conjured raccoon, (and Lily kills it with a swift merciful AK) and Lily, who has been flying without a broom since she was six and jumping off swing sets, floats them to the other side. A swift application of Fiendfyre burns the Inferi to ashes. 

In another world, Harry Potter and his ragtag bunch of loyal, gritty, friends, spent months seeking out Voldemort’s horcruxes. 

In this one, Lily and Regulus Black perform a complicated ritual involving Arithmancy and Runes to track the Horcruxes using the locket. The diadem is easy enough to locate, as is the ring, and the cup is easily removed with Polyjuice and a lock of Bella’s hair. Regulus infiltrates Lucius Malfoy’s manor during the annual Malfoy Yule Ball and pilfers Tom Riddle’s diary. They burn the Horcruxes on the last day of the year, the Fiendfyre roaring up and chasing them into the next year. 

(Voldemort doesn’t feel a thing.) 

They face Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. Voldemort is mortal and monstrous, his army paltry at best and his mind unstable and dangerous. The defeat is easy enough- Regulus sustains a few curse scars along his forearm and thigh, and Lily loses a kidney through a particularly nasty curse of Voldemort’s own invention, but they emerge alive. 

James Potter loses a limb to Antonin Dolohov, and whenever they see each other at Order reunions (she and Regulus, while technically never sworn into the Order, were instrumental to Voldemort’s defeat, and thus are always annually invited. Regulus thinks it’s cheeky, like the Order’s somehow trying to claim credit for what they did of their own volition and bravery. Lily, definitely not the brash, idiotic, stereotype of a Gryffindor and yet not the sly, canny, Slytherin with a mind for the delicate subtleties of social convention, just finds it inconvenient and awkward) he meets her eyes, hazel meeting green. 

There’s something there, something sharp and hawk-like that never fails to send a strange shiver up her spine, the world blurring as if splitting into possibilities and potential and futures that might have been. 

(She always looks away, an uncomfortable itch running across her skin.) 

As it turns out, when they fought the Battle of the Forest, Lily was already two months pregnant, and the possibility of a nasty curse hitting her baby never fails to send terrible shudders through her. 

She didn’t even- she wouldn’t even have _noticed_ , really, the bump hadn’t been showing, the fragile butterfly-hearted life that had so tentatively and yet tenaciously bloomed inside of her would have been snuffed out, not a soul in the world knowing of its existence or mourning for its absence. 

Lyra Eileen Black is born on a bright summer’s day, as the seventh month blooms. July 1st. She has the large gray eyes and arched, elegant features of her father’s family and the fiery red hair and full lips of her mother. Severus is named the godfather, of course- they wouldn’t have anyone else. 

She and Sev and Regulus live in Grimmauld Place, albeit a much different one than the grim, cloistered, prison of Regulus’s youth. 

Lily, despite not having much of an eye for aesthetics, had promptly hired an old friend, Mary McDonald, who had a gift for interior decoration. 

The portraits of old, as well as the dangerous artefacts, were kept in a thickly warded room in the basement, and the rest of the house was completely changed. The embossed fleur-de-lis wallpaper, ancient and oppressive, had been knocked out and replaced with bright, varying, colors- mint and peach sprig and lavender and crisp, clean white. 

The grime of a past century had been swiftly scraped away, the more beautiful artefacts displayed proudly on intricate glass pedestals, and after the old house elf, Kreacher, had died after trying to protect an extraordinarily nasty Dark artefact, they’d bonded with two other elves- a cheerful, plump, elf named Dottie and a younger elf named Gingie who utterly adores Lyra. 

There’s a Potions lab downstairs for Sev and Lily, and an Expanded Quidditch Pitch in the attic for Regulus and Lyra, who Regulus is apparently determined to instill a passion for Quidditch in (successfully so; Lyra is fanatically devoted to her Nimbus 1000 and her Beater drills). She Sorts Slytherin after barely a second. Sirius is enamored with her. 

Sirius comes over often, usually to marvel at the changes and throw darts at his mother’s portrait. He and Regulus, Lily is happy to see, have mended their relationship (it had taken several late nights and bottles of Ogden’s Firewhiskey, but they’re now almost as close as they used to be, which is saying something). 

Remus disappears for several years and reemerges from the gnashing filth of the werewolf packs with something hard and blazing in his amber eyes, in the strong set of his broad shoulders, in the loose hang of his fists, like he’s been through hell and come out for the better. (He has.) 

He’s significantly more attractive, too, an image that isn’t hampered in the slightest by the silvery scars twining his golden forearms, and Lily notices the way Sirius’s gaze strays over the panes of Remus’s chest, the muscle of his arms, the warm amber of his eyes- helplessly, reverently. 

She and Remus get reacquainted and Lily is delighted to discover a mind as keen as her own. They collaborate on several scholarly articles, and establish themselves as prominent promising young minds in the field of Charms (she and Sev work together on a cure for lycanthropy, and eventually stumble across a solution that works off of an existing partial cure from Damocles Belby. It allows the werewolf to keep both mental and physical humanity during the full moon, and when she and Severus release it, to great acclaim, all she can see is the wet eyes and shaking shoulders of Remus Lupin, the tearing scars across his chest, the adoring eyes of Sirius Black). 

Hadrian Sirius Black is born two years after his sister, on July 31st, but if there was a prophecy foretold of his birth, it goes unnoticed. 

Remus is his godfather, and they share an immediate kinship, Hadrian preferring to curl up with his Uncle Remus and a pile of books than taking to the Quidditch Pitch with Lyra. 

He has the crisp black curls of Regulus, which he prefers to leave loose and tangled, and Lily’s bright, eerie, green eyes. He’s more beautiful than handsome, in an elfin sort of way, and when he sorts Gryffindor and shows astonishing skill as a Seeker (Regulus nearly weeps with pride), the Flying Instructor, James Potter smiles. 

He also has unprecedented talent in the DADA field where his sister is talented at Potions and Charms, producing a Patronus at the mere age of thirteen. When the Triwizard Tournament is hosted, a jealous rival slips his name in as a primitive assassination attempt- and Hadrian, or Harry, as he prefers to be called, _wins_. 

Lily knows her children are extraordinary, and she knows, too- 

Her _existence_ is extraordinary, she survived through a war and being a Mudblood in the _Black family_ and she is a scholar of great renown in the Charms and Potions community and- 

_Maybe_ , Lily thought once, an age ago, meeting gray eyes across a vast, seemingly uncrossable, expanse, _maybe_ , and now she thinks _thank God, thank Christ, thank fuck_ with a sort of dizzying incredulity. _I wonder_ , she thought once, eyes lingering over green-and-silver and a heartbreakingly beautiful boy amidst them all, and now she thinks _I know._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't the end! I mean. It is. But we'll be looking at some brief one-shots of Lyra and Hadrian and an as-of-yet unnamed third sibling who I have yet to decide the gender of.... *mysterious woo woo noises* And honestly, some more James Potter bashing because i CANNOT GET ENOUGH. (he's gonna be the spiteful professor who hates Harry at first sight due to complicated history with his mother and father, sound like anyone we know??? yes, I shamelessly ad-libbed James Potter in Snape's role.)

**Author's Note:**

> soundtrack:
> 
> "Electric" by Alina Baraz 
> 
> "Unconditional" by Freya Ridings 
> 
> "I Found" by Amber Run


End file.
